


The Storm and the Lighthouse

by Langamire



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Modification, Childbirth, Fishing, Intercrural Sex, Intersex, M/M, Merman Lance, Merman Shiro, Multi, Not Beta Read, Other, Rape, Scarification, Sexual Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:35:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9626603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Langamire/pseuds/Langamire
Summary: Mermaid AU: Keith Kogane is perfectly content living in the middle of nowhere taking care of an aging lighthouse and research facility, far away from any civilization. When the first winter storm hits, he saves a life and gets caught up in a desperate game of keep-away. Shiro is recovering from a traumatic series of injuries and mental breakdowns after being imprisoned by the Galra and he needs to remember something important. Lance has been separated from his family and friends, doesn't really know how to take care of himself, and wants company and fries. Hunk is a Gourmand obsessed with machines and what Mermaid sushi tastes like. Pidge still really wants to find her family.





	1. Chapter One

The Storm and the Lighthouse

It was in the distant past that the Mer were introduced to the ocean. Humanity had soiled much of world, but with this cost came incredible insight into genetics. It was the hard work of Altean Corp, which eventually bankrupted and dissolved in an effort to culminate their dream. Adaptive and highly intelligent, they had strong instincts to nurture, and they cleaned and healed and cultivated the ocean in ways humanity could not understand. With humanoid torsos and differing tails based on their secondary genetics, many humans were inthralled and obsessed with these beautiful creatures. As time passed, the lab raised Mers taught their descendants and they flourished, became wild, and healed vast ecosystems. There is still contact between the species and humanity, but most Mer are shy, and they can hide very easily from human visitors. There are thousands of varieties of Mer and as the wild ones continue to breed out of human sight, it is likely that there a plethora that have yet to be discovered and identified.  
\--- A Beginner’s Guide to the Mer, Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1:

Keith Kogane was the sole occupant of the Grey Point Lighthouse research facility at this time of year. Remote and almost an hour's drive away from any town on a winding dirt road, it was a pillar of reinforced steel, concrete and brick, lit by a wave of light that arced across the dark ocean waves below. The first large winter storm had hit the coast, scattering the last sailboats to the harbors where they huddled close together. Keith was there to maintain the lighthouse just in case of an emergency wayward ship, and to keep an eye on any unusual Galra migrations. Both were so unlikely, that he was prepared to hunker down, eat instant noodles and surf the internet until further notice. Most people would be made miserable by the isolation, but Keith liked it. The position also allowed him access to equipment that was well outside of his technical degree. 

Heavy wet clouds had blotted out the moon earlier in the night and the sea looked like a boiling pot of ink outside his window. Rain had started earlier in the evening and was hitting it with increased urgency. Keith looked up from his cup of tea and his computer screen to consider it. The storm was now beginning to gain enough strength to potentially damage the annex labs closer to the water. As if to punctuate that thought, the sound of a window cover tumbling across the lawn that separated the lighthouse from the labs made him rise to his feet. 

“Damn it..” Keith was swearing through his teeth, because he was warm and comfortable right now and he didn’t want to go outside. Pulling on his waders and a heavy raincoat, he grabbed the brightest flashlight available as well as a box toolkit. He was fully prepped and opened the door to saunter out. An entire bucket worth of rain greeted his face as he passed the threshold and he sighed internally as the water dripped under his coat immediately through the opening around his face. So much for staying dry and comfortable. ‘Damn, stupid, cock’ he repeated in mantra to himself. ‘Hunk and Pidge are going to get it from me for not double checking the storm preparations.’ 

Hunk and Pidge were respectively a mechanic and engineer that helped him maintain the remote facility, but there was no need for them to be here in the off season. 

As he was sauntering across the lawn, puddles already forming, a single high powered magnesium light providing the only visuals around, he was distracted by something similar to a cry. The first time he dismissed it, but then it was followed by a second and third in quick succession. 

….what the hell? It sounded like a human’s voice. 

Was there someone down by the rocks? Keith didn’t scare easy, but the cries did not sound happy, and he was very aware that he was there all alone. He turned, wary and hyper alert and moved closer to where he had heard the sound come from. He pointed his high powered flashlight out at the water as another cry was carried in the storm winds. It was by the jetty, which was comprised of massive rocks that jutted out a fair deal into the ocean. They were slick and covered in debris and mussels. Scanning his light over the jetty, he didn’t see anything at first, and then nearly dropped the light out of shock. 

There was a man, a nude man’s torso, clinging to a rock, or was he trapped? But he was crying, sometimes loudly in pain, other times just letting out low keening sobs. Keith felt himself run closer, the wet on his face no longer noticeable. As he drew near, a few things became apparent. This man was not human. He was a Mer, and its torso was attached to a long, muscular tail, and there were several chains that were tangled in the rocks, effectively trapping it. It was getting battered by waves against the them over and over, pulling at the chains weakly with a single arm. It did not notice Keith as he approached, the poor thing was so desperately pulling at the chain that was lodged between two huge boulders. 

Keith had studied Mers most of his life. But he had never been this close to one this large before. He was struck for a moment at how vulnerable it looked. After seeing nothing but footage of powerful creatures dancing and working in the water, he was seeing a mortal side to this majestic species. He carefully stepped along the ridge of the jetty, avoiding shining the flashlight directly on the creature’s face below. A wave of wind and water almost knocked him off his feet and he crouched just as the Mer looked up. 

There was a grim expression, with wide-eyed fear in it’s eyes. Keith could see that this mer was covered in scars, with a large one running across the bridge of its nose. It was missing its opposite arm, which was a healed nub, now rubbed raw and bloody with the struggles to get out of the tangled mess it was in. 

A wave crashed over the mer and it was tossed against the rock, the water foaming up just under Keith’s feet. The blow made the creature dazed and it took several moments to recover before looking back up at the human above it. Keith could see where there was a chain caught in the rock near his feet. He opened his toolbox again and was kneeling and pulling out wire cutters in moments. The storm sensed his vulnerable position, and a gust of wind knocked him over and sent his toolbox crashing down the rocks in the jetty. 

‘Fuck!’ Keith yelled, gripped his wire cutters, watched as the box was launched by another gust of wind into the air and landed right under a wave with a smug plop. Cursing his luck, he held tightly to the edge of the bolder and began hacking at the chains with his small wire cutters, the handle slipping in his fingers in the rain. The chains were thick and very hard, the material was doing almost more damage to blades than their supposed target. ‘Fuck!’ Keith yelled again, louder. 

The Mer was clinging to the rock it had been battered against, watching him, understanding that he was trying to help, but failing- because he began to desperately pull at the chain from his end. It was a low, pained scream that made Keith realize that this chain wasn’t just tangling this Mer, it was inside it. Holding the chain tight in his grip and leaning over the rocks to get a closer look at where it was caught, he held the flashlight evenly at the body below him. 

There was a large, thick ring piercing the Mer’s gill. It was healed, but the Mer was pulling so hard at it that the flesh was starting to rip and bleed. Another wave came crashing down again, pummeling the mer to the rocks, tail twisting almost over head, and Keith felt the flashlight get pulled from his hands as the foam splash around his ankles The Mer’s head was lolling on his shoulders, obviously dazed. It wouldn’t last much longer trapped out here, and the wind was picking up. Keith gripped the chain and lowered himself down within touching distance of the Mer. 

‘Hold on,’ he said, teeth chattering as the frothing waves blew freezing water onto his face. The Mer’s head rolled over at the sound of his voice and it looked into his eyes. It had a very peaceful expression. It didn’t move, even when he pulled on the chain attached to the gill, the ring in it already bleeding from the thrashing by the waves. Keith climbed closer and knelt by to the pinned body. He hesitated for a moment before touching the skin, it was shivering and felt heavy, full of life, even weakened. 

‘ I’m going to try and cut the ring.’ Keith shouted into the wind, hoping by saying it aloud it would make the process more successful. But even as he started to cut at it, he could tell that the metal was much denser and harder than the blades of the wire cutter. ‘Come onnnn,’ he groaned as little flakes of metal started to shave off of the ring. The ocean let out a hiss and Keith only saw the silhouette of a large wave cresting above him before it landed. Just as a wall of freezing water knocked him into the rocks, the Mer rose up and latched onto him with a powerful arm. They were both tossed and held underwater for several moments, and Keith seized up in shock from the temperature change and the power of the wave. He felt trapped, and had a moment of claustrophobic understanding that he had to get up and back on the jetty if he was going to survive. 

The wave washed back out and he coughed, wiping his face. ‘I’m sorry!!’ he screamed into the wind, looking at the Mer, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t cut it!’

The arm that was holding his side reached down and plucked at the gill the ring was embedded in. It pulled at it and shook the ring, motioning at it. 

‘...cut..me…’ A voice rasped, barely legible over the storm. 

Keith looked at the mer, exhausted, but determined. He leaned over the ring and pressed the the wire cutters to the flesh of the gill. It was a deep fan of sensitive tissue. ‘I’m sorry, these aren’t sharp’ he breathed then cut. 

The first pass skipped and scraped off skin. The mer flinched but didn’t move. In the distance, Keith could see another huge wave coming, and he steadied himself and cut again. A deep wound started to bubble red blood from the cut. The Mer tensed and then fell limp again. Keith gripped the ring in his hand and cut the remaining bridge of flesh with the wire cutters. There was still a small ridge of tissue attaching the ring, but the Mer lashed out with its heavy tail and it ripped free. Keith felt a wave of warm liquid arc across his face and gasped as it fell backwards, struggling with renewed desperation to get free from the tangle of chains. Keith saw the large wave beginning to crest over the jetty and pulled himself up the rocks in an adrenaline fueled panic. A wet spot slipped him up and he dropped the wire cutters, wincing as his knees dug into the hard surface. The wave came down, and the froth covered Keith’s legs and feet. He watched the mer get tossed once more, but this time the powerful tail beat in the water and in a flash of white and black, it was gone. 

Keith gasped, panting in excitement as he spotted the shark fin maneuvering close to the surface. He let out an excited shout- out of all the studies he had done and work in his field, he had never personally interacted or helped a Mer, and here he had saved one from a certain demise. His tools were gone, and so was his flashlight, but the beam of light from the lighthouse lens illuminated the rocks enough for him to slowly crawl back. As he set foot on land and turned, he could still see the fin of the mer, still struggling against the storm waves. Had the Mer watched him to make sure he got to safety? It looked like it was having trouble- probably due to only having one arm, and being exhausted. There was nothing else Keith could do to help it. The wind was picking up to hurricane levels and he would have to get inside to be safe. For now at least, it was on its own in the raging ocean, struggling against the currents before diving and disappearing from sight. 

Keith raced back to the lighthouse, detouring only to grab the window cover off the lawn that had fallen off of the lab annex. Inside, he felt his body starting to lose its adrenaline. He was exhausted and ached all over. He stumbled past the foyer and into the bathroom, stripping his raincoat and waders as he went. He winced as he peeled off his pants. His skin was freezing, and he had goosebumps all over. His knees were busted up, bruises already forming on them, and a large welt growing on his hip. Naked and sore, Keith looked into the bathroom mirror. He looked like a large drowned rodent, with his hair totally flattened and ears sticking out. There was a necklace of pink and red blood drops at his collarbone from the mer’s wound. He sighed and tried to swallow down the anxiety he felt for the creature still out there. He cranked the knobs on the shower and yelped at the sensation of warmth spreading over his frozen skin. 

 

A cup of tea later and now curled up in warm, dry sleep clothes, Keith was on the network trying to get in touch with his colleagues, Hunk and Pidge. Nobody was responding, but it was almost 3am. Hunk would be pissed about Keith losing his toolkit, but he was pretty sure all would be forgiven once he shared what they had been sacrificed for. Still, he’d try and find as many of the tools as he could when the storm abated. He sat cross-legged in his chair, staring at the research computer. He spent some time looking up what kind of species of Mer he had come into contact with. It was a rare type, a large Mer that could travel off of the coastal shelf and cross the deep ocean deserts, and tolerate the frigid temperatures. Definitely some kind of shark hybrid. It had also spoken to him. Keith sat up and considered that it had not only been able to talk, but also held him to keep him from being carried away on a wave. 

It wasn’t unheard of for Mers to be imprisoned, but it was definitely against the law. The species was on an untouchable list. Why anyone would want to drive chains literally through such a peaceful, gentle creature spiked intense anger through Keith’s chest. But it still happened. There were people that loved the taste of Mer, and also enjoyed them for more perverse reasons. There was no limit to the depravity. He sat at his computer until his tea became cold, researching an endless chain of vague facts and unconnected research papers, hoping to find something related to the mer chained to the jetty.

He found several conspiracy theories tied to disappearing Mer populations, but nothing supported by any reputable organizations.

Eventually he looked up to see that it was now 4am- the storm was still raging outside and his exhaustion was leaving him delirious. He got up from his chair and curled onto his cot, under warm blankets. He settled into an uneasy rest, thinking of the one-armed mer struggling against the waves. 

\--------------------

 

Keith woke from restless sleep, his brain having registered that the wind from the storm had died down. He winced at the light from the morning sun coming in through the lighthouse portals, and then at his sore bruised knees. He felt like an old man. He laid in the bed for a few minutes, cycling through the events of the night prior, before sitting up and deciding on searching the jetty for Hunk’s tools, and a possible sighting of the poor Mer who had been stranded. He ate some leftover salami Hunk had bequeathed him for fuel in the fridge, then dug up some protein bars for later. 

He pulled on his damp waders, along with a warm undershirt and sweater, slipped on a jacket and carded his fingers through his hair. He was ready for the cold air outside, and for all the puddles the storm had left. The ocean seemed apologetic and demure now, after having such a tantrum all night. This time he carried a knapsack with heavier tools over his shoulder. 

As Keith stepped onto the jetty, he spotted where the chains were still caught in the rocks. They were still stuck tight, and he struggled with it for a short time before giving up. They were so heavy and huge, lifting them in his hand he could see that they must have weighed the Mer down considerably. Sighing, he trained his gaze and shielded his eyes from the sun with a hand, scanning the waves in the distance for the tail fin that had disappeared under the water last night. It was very likely he would never see the creature again, if it was well enough to swim away. Still, it would be best to check and make sure that the coastline around the lighthouse was clear and there weren’t others like him out there. 

He couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed at not seeing the magnificent creature and as he stepped off the jetty he sighed. Living at the Lighthouse was peaceful and it allowed him to burrow away from the rest of the world. He didn’t like people, they were usually cruel and petty. He didn’t fit in anywhere. But this creature had been kind to him, had saved him from getting recklessly washed away by a wave, had even stayed to make sure he made it back on to land safely. Keith just wasn’t used to being cared about so easily, but it had been natural to the Mer. It had felt nice. 

He left the jetty and walked around the annex, then back along the cliffs, where a stairway was carved into the sandstone for beach access. 

He took the stairs down to walk along the white shoreline and check the tidal pools. The waves were coming in, but there were still crowds of exposed anemones and sea urchins, clustered in shallow pools to stay out of the sun. 

It wasn’t more than short walk away from the stairs to the facility that Keith saw something that made his stomach drop. The Mer from the night before, beached and unmoving. Keith booked towards its form, frightening away seagulls that were curiously gathering around the prone creature. Had the Mer drowned in the storm? Been caught again? Suffered from so much blood-loss that it had died?

He slid in the sand near the pool and knelt down by the Mer, reaching for his head, which was resting at an odd angle on the sand. The Mer was massively heavy, but he grabbed desperately at its neck and shoulders, which were not stiff. He brushed the fringe of white falling into the Mer’s eyes and wiped it’s face and nose with his fingers. Keith moved a hand down the Mer’s waist and felt its gills moving slightly, ventilating and foaming in the open air. It was definitely weak, possibly dying, but not gone yet. Keith cupped water from the pool nearby in his hands and let it slide down the Mer’s gills. Its eyes fluttered open for a moment and its lips parted.

‘Hey..’ Keith knelt down by its face, trying not to crowd it. ‘Do you remember me? I was the human that helped you last night.’

The Mer blinked slowly and its eyes tried to focus on Keith. ‘Please..’ it choked on its own tongue and let out several painful coughs before ventilating through its mouth desperately. 

‘Don’t try to talk, I’m going to get you out to the ocean’ Keith moved to stand and take the Mer by its tail. 

‘No!!’ the it cried out suddenly, ‘No- please’

Keith let go of the tail and it dropped with a wet thud. He went back to crouch by the mer. ‘No? But, you’ll die if you don’t get back into water.’

It was so weak that the next few times it tried to speak it could only mouth the words. Keith pulled out a water bottle from his knapsack and emptied it over the Mer’s face, then gently poured it into his mouth. The mer gurgled and choked again, mucus and sand washing out of his throat. 

‘Please,’ he groaned weakly, ‘The Galra are...hunting me..’

The hair on the back of Keith's neck stood on end. The Galra, a hyper aggressive Mer species that had unexplainably started attacking and destroying large areas of the ocean were well known for hunting their prey from one end of earth to the other. Had the Mer literally grounded himself to avoid being detected by them? Had he been counting on Keith, a human that had literally cut open- to come looking for him? It made Keith’s head spin, but he knew that the Mer was desperate and he wanted to help. 

A sudden thought hit him. He could hide his Mer in the research tanks. They pumped ocean water automatically using kinetic energy, and they were large enough for even a Mer this size. All he had to do was get him to the sample lift at the bottom of the cliff and he could pull the incapacitated creature up. 

‘Wait here’, he brushed back the Mer’s white hair. ‘I’ll be right back, I have a place for you!’ 

Keith dashed down the beach and up the stairs to the annex, struggling with the keys in his knapsack before throwing open the door. He flipped the generator switch and the lights. The annex was a research warehouse used by various schools to store samples and rescue or rehabilitate larger marine life. Due to the out of the way location, no one was using them and they were empty. And he literally was rescuing marine life, so Keith didn’t feel like he was subverting their intended purpose. He powered up the computer that monitored the conditions in the tank. Then he started the water pump. It sputtered at first before a flood of cold ocean water started to fill it up. 

He dashed to the utility closet and grabbed all the rope and tarp that he could carry and then ran out the door and back down the stairs on the cliff. He almost tripped and fell over the load in his hands but he caught his balance and in a short jog was by the Mer’s side. He crouched down by it and cupped more water and brought it to its face. 

‘You okay? I’ve got a place for you to recover, I just have to move you onto a tarp and drag you a few meters closer to the lift.’ 

The Mer’s eyes fluttered and cracked open, a grateful tear leaking down a cheek. Keith could see that he was weakening at a rapid pace. ‘Hold on, hold on, here we go.’

He laid out a large tarp over the sand at the edge of the pool and crouched, pulling at the Mer’s mass. He didn’t budge one bit, and Keith felt a little embarrassed at how puny he felt. Its body had to weigh almost half a ton and it was pure muscle. Even wheezing weakly, he could see braids of muscles contracting along its chest. He knelt and gritted his teeth, face turning red with exertion as the Mer’s torso flopped a few inches closer to the tarp. 

‘Hey buddy,’ Keith panted, leaning down to address the Mer’s face, ‘I might need your help here, can you move at all?’

At first it didn’t answer, head lolling to the side, but then the eyelids fluttered and with a small flop, the long tail thrashed and the mer’s heavy body slid forward onto the tarp. There was an evil foam appearing in the mer’s gills and Keith gritted his teeth and pulled again, just as the tail flicked one more time. It was enough to get him mostly on the tarp and Keith was gasping from the exertion. He tied ropes through the rivets on the tarp and ran to the bottom of the sample lift, connecting it to a winch that was used for pulling massive things like boats out of the ocean. Panting and crossing his fingers, he turned on the winch, which started to drag the Mer’s prone form towards him. The lift was meant for this exact purpose- whether it was hauling Mer, large sea mammals or even mollusk covered boulders into the tanks, and the facility had a small crane to remove them as well. 

As the tarp dragged onto the rusted plate metal of the lift Keith hoisted the Mer by his arm so that he was sitting and leaning on its side. 

‘Okay,’ Keith sighed, ‘Almost there, don’t die on me.’

They moved quickly and evenly and as they reached the top he could hear the roar of the water pump filling the tanks. The opposite side lowered and all he had to do was guide the Mer down and it body mass dragged the rest of it. It landed in an inelegant belly flop, water splashing everywhere and sank to the bottom of the pool. Keith climbed down the side of the wall and jumped in, clothes and all. He half swam and half ran to the prone form laying on the bottom of the tank. In the water, the Mer was almost weightless. He lifted it by the shoulders.

His hands stretched out and rubbed up and down the its back, tracing scars and the different textures of skin. He dipped his fingers into the ridges of it’s gills, gently clearing them of sand, then swiping down the ridge of its back, brushing the fins. Keith smiled as he saw the gills opening and closing, working weakly at getting oxygen into the Mer’s bloodstream. The muscled body stirred under his hands. An arm reached out and touched Keith, then laced its fingers with his hand, letting him know that it was aware. Keith took a deep breath of air and stuck his head under the water, opening his eyes and peering through his lashes. The Mer was ventilating hard, and watching him back. Its eyes were open- they were a grey color.

Keith stood up in the pool and sucked air into his lungs, brushing his hair out of his face and wiping his eyes. The Mer flicked its tail and slid at a very languid pace around the pool. 

‘Okay!’ Keith was grinning. He swam behind the Mer for about a minute, just watching how the loss of one arm had him over compensate with the other, but tail was so powerful that he could propel just fine. It was more a matter of steering. The Mer turned sharply and brushed past Keith, he felt a blooming warmth in his stomach as the creature slid across him, its broad undertail rubbing over his thighs. 

‘I had... almost given up.’ The voice was still hoarse and tired, but it had a deep tone.. The Mer’s face broke the surface and he was coming closer, slipping an arm around Keith’s in order to support itself. ‘I can’t thank you enough…’

‘No worries,’ Keith slipped down so the mer wouldn’t have to look up at him. ‘You’ll be okay here, it’s just me watching the lighthouse. You came here because you knew there was a lab didn’t you?’

The Mer tilted his head, but seemed so tired that the answer to the questions died on his lips.  
‘What is your name?’ Keith touched the Mer’s side feeling giddy about the healthy ventilating happening in his gills. 

‘Shiro.’ Its eyes crinkled and he saw that it was smiling. ‘Tell me yours?’

‘Keith. Just Keith. I’ll keep you safe, Shiro.’ 

And as he slipped under the surface of the water he fought a war between wanting to tell Pidge and Hunk to get back as soon as possible to help him with the huge Mer in the sample tank, or keep it a complete secret and enjoy having a rare and very tactile creature for a few weeks before they returned. 

Keith climbed out of the tank and watched Shiro swim in slow circles. He was sure that the Mer was not in great shape and probably needed to rest for a long time, it wasn’t something that he could interrupt, no matter how curious he was. While he was running his fingers across the tail, he hadn’t felt anything broken or ripped beyond the bruises and damage to the gill that his own wire cutters had done. 

Considering that Shiro had confessed fleeing from the Galra though, Keith felt an instinctual paranoid checklist forming in his mind. He had to dispose of the chain in the jetty. He had to make sure there wasn’t anything suspicious on the beach. He had to make sure as few people knew about Shiro recovering in the tank as possible. But at the same time, he didn’t think that he’d be able to get it past Pidge and Hunk- especially Pidge, who was probably already noticing that the lab computer was booted on. 

He walked back into the lighthouse to check on his phone. Sure enough, she was already texting him. 

P: Saw you boot up the research terminal. What’s happening? 

Keith mulled over his choices. 

K: Found something on the beach, wanted to monitor it. 

He got in front of his personal laptop and logged into the private chat Pidge had made that year. It was probably better to discuss this way than over the phone. 

\--------

K: Hey guys, I wanted to let you know I won’t be on much, I collected a sample on the beach and I am going to be monitoring it for most of the day. 

P: Okay, just make sure that you check filters and drain the tanks when you’re all finished. What did you find, some kind of crustacean?

K: Why would you say that?

P: I dunno it would just be fitting, Keith all alone with a tank full of crabs.

H: Pidge do not try me, the last thing I need to think about is a whole tank of delicious crab meat at hand. 

P: Keith is playing around with the sample tanks. 

H: Dude! If you get caught messing with that stuff without supervision, you could get your hermit ass fired. 

K: Don’t worry. No one is finding out.

H: Not reassuring. 

K: I’m only telling you, and you guys don’t rat. 

P: Damn straight. What’s the catch?

K: Okay, guys, be cool okay.

H: Oh my god it really is a tank full of crabs.

K: No. Listen, guys, this is going to get serious. 

P: ???

K: I found a Mer - and it was beached and hurt, so I hauled it into the tank. 

P: what

H: NOOOOO WAYYY nowaynoway

P: What kind? Is it a male, female, intersex? How big is it?

K: Some kind of shark, probably male, pretty big- definitely not a baby. Its got lots of scars and also missing an arm. I found it caught in a bunch of chains, one of them was piercing the gill. 

H: HOLEYYY SHIT, this is amazing. How did you get him up to the tank??

P: Sample Lift

K: sample, oh what Pidge said. 

K: Guys, he can speak, I think he’s not a wild Mer- he was trying to tell me that he was captured by the Galra. 

P: Uhhhhhh

H: What dude. Keith, buddy, buddy you took a Galra’s prey and put it in the sample tank? Are you gonna throw it back?

K: No, why would I do that. 

H: SURVIVAL? They’re probably climbing into the lab annex right now and then coming for you. 

K: Shut up Hank, they aren’t that good at tracking. 

H: You don’t know that!!

P: I agree with Keith. Keep it out of sight and let it recover. You said it was a big male? With language training? 

K: Yeah. 

P: It might be a science or military liaison. There aren’t many of those, I can search the database for missing or abducted registered Mer. Did it give you a name?

K: Yeah, but I have to say it was really out of it. 

P:....I’m going to give my work notice and come out there. 

K: What. Pidge stay where you are, it will be suspicious if you come out here out of the blue. 

P: Who says I’ll report it. I don’t start school for 3 months. 

Keith groaned and leaned back. His stomach was growling so he tore open one of his health bars. He knew he couldn’t keep much away from Pidge and Hunk anyway, so he didn’t regret telling them, but he didn’t know why Pidge was being so nosey all of a sudden. He cracked his knuckles and started typing.

K: Look, just relax. Let me get information from it, its really friendly and it can talk. I’ll relay anything that’s interesting, I promise. But don’t just quit your job at the drop of a hat Pidge. 

H: Yeah Pidge, for all we know Keith could have gone crazy with loneliness and invented himself a friend. 

P: Can you post pictures tomorrow along with a general wellness update? 

K: Sure, no problem. But for now, I have some clean-up to do to prevent Galra invasion. 

H: Good luck! If I don’t hear from you tomorrow I’ll assume they ate you, bro. 

K: Ha. Later.

Keith closed his computer and tossed his health bar wrapper. It was time to get rid of the evidence. He gathered a pickaxe and a crowbar from the annex lab shed. That chain was coming out of the jetty. 

One hour later, Keith had shed his jacket and rolled his sweater up to his forearms. He had chipped away at the rock and the chain was starting to slide around. He pulled at it and the heavy weight slipped free of their prison. The ring was really thick and still had a string of Shiro’s flesh attached. Keith winced looking at it. He coiled the chain up along with his pickaxe and crowbar and walked back along the jetty to land. 

 

\-------------------


	2. The Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro remembers. WARNING: Contains graphic violence and non-consensual sex.

Chapter 2:

 

No one can say for sure if we know all the different breeds and races of Mer, there are still many that have been breeding entirely in isolation, away from humans. It is thought that selective isolation let to the hyper aggressive races that we now see today, that have begun a hostile, species-wide war over dominance of much of the Ocean.  
\--- A Beginner’s Guide to the Mer, Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe

 

In the deep cold under the ice flows, Shiro swam in the darkness, his eyes blown wide and searching. He was listening, the smallest echoes reverberating across his skin. His tail was beating as fast as it could and he was weak from hunger. He had yet to run into anything he could grab and eat on the sly as he continued his frantic swimming. It was so dark, that he could only barely make out silhouettes in the distance, even with his adapted sight. 

The silence this deep was deafening, and the currents that were filtering along the bottom were barely above freezing. Shiro felt like he had been swimming for hours without any sound or direction. Sometimes he would pass by a tiny squid or an aggressive little hagfish, but they would see how large he was and disappear. There was something silhouetted on the seabed and he was approaching it. It wasn’t alive, he could tell that based on the shape- all hard angles, and he couldn’t feel a heartbeat against his skin. He was so hyper aware now that he could literally sense another creatures pulse at a certain distance. 

As he swam closer, he could now see that it was a sunken ship. He recognized them, and knew the difference between specific types. This one was made of metal, and looked like it had been a military ship at one point. It was totally rusted and covered in little scavenger shrimps. They were too small to be useful food for him though. He swam around it, peered into it, investigating it. It was split in half, and there were bits of debris scattered around it. There was nothing accessible or useful inside, but maybe he could rest near it, knowing he wasn’t exposed on the open floor. He was exhausted from his near suicidal sprint. His tail and back ached with scores of healing scratches. He was grateful that he had not opened any of his deeper wounds, even exhausted and hungry his body was healing. If it wasn’t giving up, neither could he. He needed to rest to recover some strength to swim further. 

He was hunkered down in the sand, ventilating from the draining swim and shaking in fear, when he heard the familiar electric chirps of his captors. There were dozens of little pings, and they were coming from both far away and nearby. His tail started to quiver. He couldn’t tell where they were, but he knew that the crackles were taunts. They had followed him so quickly. Their powerful electric fields could immobilize smaller Mer than Shiro, and they could make his limbs numb for several moments at a time. 

Eyes blown wide, he looked all over for them, sinking lower into the sea bottom, hoping that they hadn’t seen him yet. 

A flash of bioluminescent eyes and a huge form rounding the side of the boat made him lose his breath. It was Prorok, a larger Galra, with deep purple skin and tail flashing with glowing dots, illuminating the area. He had heavy forearms and lower fangs that protruded from his mouth. Another pair of eyes lit up above the boat. Haxus, always nearby Prorok, sleeker with long tail whiskers, running along the ship, sniffing Shiro’s scent. His eyes were glowing in the depths. Then another Galra shadow, and another and another. Their flashing bodies were illuminating the water and he could see now dozens of large forms circling him. The faces of the ones closest to him were lit by their eyes, they saw him and their lips were curled into saw-toothed smiles. With so many flashing bodies strobing the surrounding area, Shiro saw the huge shadow first. Then the largest Galra came over the deck of the dessicated boat, powerful tail beating languidly towards him. 

‘So you finally stopped running, did you?’ Sendak’s tone was smooth and languid. Shiro’s old bites from Sendak burned and terror seized him. This was the alpha of the group, with extra fins on his massive tail to increase the mobility of his already powerful and swift form. He had fan-like ears framing his head, to increase his ability to sense his prey. His left arm was glowing with a low phosphorescence. Shiro knew from experience, that when he attacked with that arm it also shocked, rendering his victims paralyzed. With a desperate thrash, the sea floor exploded in a billow of silt and he was racing away as fast as he could. He could feel the water rushing towards him, Sendak’s form like a missile, gaining every moment. He let out a cry as Sendak pulled even with him and then crushed him with his mass against the sea floor. Their tails thrashed together and Shiro was fighting him with all of his might. Sendak was roaring with pleasure at the hunt and at Shiro’s ferocity. He felt the sharp burning pain of knife-like teeth sinking into his shoulder, over an old wound put there by the same mouth. 

Shiro was exhausted. He had not eaten, not slept and had been swimming at his fastest pace for nearly two days. His mouth was choking on the mineral grit of the seabed and he was fighting against a predator almost twice his size. But he was full of pain and adrenaline and he snapped back, scoring a deep bite on Sendak’s ear-fin, making him release his mouth from Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro struck out, his left arm cutting across Sendak’s face, slicing his other head fin. Sendak’s arm flared brightly and gouged claws into Shiro’s side then shocked him with a jolt of power that made his side go numb. He could see blood in the water, knew it was his, and cut his arm across Sendak’s face again, this time making contact with the soft tissue of his eye. He latched onto it and squeezed, feeling the tender organ pop and tear in his hand. 

Sendak roared, the sound was more like a sonic pulse through the water, knocking Shiro down again. He was bleeding and dazed, but not done yet. His tail slipped around Sendak and he whipped it hard, using the sharp tip on his longest fin to cut at him. The larger Mer rolled off, gripping his ruined eye and Shiro realized he was surrounded by the other Galra. They had him in a virtual ring. They were all hungrily watching, circling and ready to pounce. Sendak was snarling and pulsing, flaring light across Shiro’s face. He backhanded him, a claw catching against his face and tearing it open. Shiro felt his teeth loosen from the blow and saw stars. He shook his head, trying to clear it when Sendak was on him again. 

‘HNNNNAAAAAUGGGH, you little biter.’ The larger Mer was holding his wounded head in his normal arm, and tearing at Shiro with the other. 

‘So glad to see you have so much fight left in you.’ Sendak’s left arm flared up again and he delivered a much more powerful blow, making Shiro twitch and seize up, gagging out mucus and dirt. He loomed over Shiro again, latching onto the arm that had damaged his eye and sinking his teeth into it. More blood clouded the water and the Galra cheered. Sendak’s eye looked like dessicated bait, and he pulled the destroyed organ from its single thread of nerve ending out of his socket and held it in his hand. ‘You dealt the blow. You have earned your spoils.’

He slammed the ruined eye over Shiro’s mouth, rubbing it against his lips and forcing it into his mouth. He screamed and tasted the blood, involuntarily swallowing. Sendak pressed him down, crushing a hand over his mouth until the slimy deposit was sliding down his throat. Shiro felt sick, but his body was far too occupied with surviving Sendak’s assault. He screamed and thrashed, Sendak was so big, almost twice his weight and he was weakening fast. As the larger Mer’s arms wrapped a vice hold around him, he felt his strength draining away. He had failed, he had lost his chance to get help and now he was caught. He struggled desperately, for his life, but he was not able to break Sendak’s grip now. 

Sendak could feel Shiro’s resilience leaving him and the larger Mer’s bloodlust was transforming into something different. He was still grinding Shiro into the silt, kicking up clouds of sediment and growling. 

‘Still fighting, I am pleased that I did not place false hope in you. The others did not think that you would be suited to swim with us, to serve with us, but even though you are not Galra, you have defended yourself admirably. Submit to me now, and I will not let them consume you.’

He gripped Shiro’s forearms and ground his claws into them. 

‘No!’ Shiro cried out, receiving another painful electrocution as punishment for his disobedience.

‘It’s twice now that you’ve tried this little farce. Have you realized that we are stronger than you? Faster than you?’ He emphasized this point with an extra grind, pinning Shiro under him to the point of crushing. 

‘Answer me.’ he was growling. He dropped Shiro’s arms, which were like dead weight by his sides, useless for now because of Sendak’s savaging. 

He raised his mouth to his throat and Shiro tensed, knowing this would be the end. He was left with pinpricks, little red flowers of blood rising up between them. His heart sped up from the taunt. He struggled again, this time trying to slip from Sendak’s arms and felt his chest constrict. ‘Don’t make me repeat myself.’ Sendak’s mutilated face was inches from his. He licked across Shiro’s open wound on his nose. How was the huge creature able to remain so calm, wasn’t he in terrible pain? 

‘You are stronger than me.’ Shiro croaked, now fully engaged in survival mode. ‘But I will never give up.’

Sendak was toying with him, and he desperately wanted to live. He had to get help for the humans held captive. He had to live to escape another day. 

Sendak stilled over Shiro and licked at one of the bleeding cuts on his chest, tasting the shark Mer. He released his grip on Shiro and put a hand around his neck. 

‘Who is my little pet?’ He purred, pleased that Shiro had remained limp and docile under him. 

‘Prorok.’ Shiro croaked defiantly, naming the large and stupid Galra in the circling pack. His gills were starting to tremble out of fear. They were choked on the heavy silt and straining. The large Mer mentioned roared in outrage, while Sendak threw back his head and laughed. 

‘Such a feisty thing.’ He dug his claws into Shiro’s ribs, light crackling from it before he felt the electricity jolt through his body. He convulsed as Sendak dug in again, and then up to his neck, shocking his chest and throat. This was no longer a fight.

‘Who is?’ Sendak was starting to slowly grind against Shiro, huge tail completely covering his. 

Shiro pressed his bloody lips shut, silent. Sendak constricted his throat and squeezed. 

‘A naughty pet, running away all the time.’ the hand drifted off of Shiro’s neck and he gasped in relief. It continued down his chest, squeezing his open wounds. Shiro closed his eyes and ground his bloody teeth together, writhing in pain, the weight of Sendak still pinning his lower half down.

A claw traced over his slashed side and Shiro cried out.

He was so afraid, and he knew that Sendak was the only thing keeping the other Galra circling around the silt cloud from devouring him, tearing chunks of bloody flesh off of his wounded body and leaving nothing but scraps for the scavenging shrimp. But even so, he let the burning anger inside temper his response. 

‘You must be very strong,’ he said shakily, ‘With a whole bait ball following you around.’

Sendak tilted his head running his hands lower, to Shiro’s waist, and letting the smaller Mer’s arms hang uselessly by his sides. 

‘You are a Champion.’ He replied, voice getting deeper, an edge in it that Shiro couldn’t identify. ‘Worthy of my attention. But do not ever mistake my holding back on you as weakness.’

Shiro went from fear to mortification as Sendak’s large finger traced his slit, lifting his mass off of the smaller Mer enough to grip his tail with both hands and forcefully open it, exposing both his limp claspers and the small opening to his brood pouch. 

‘W-what are you doing? Stop!’ He felt complete revulsion and fear. 

‘I have other uses for you than just as prey.’

It was common for Shiro’s species to carry young in case the female was sick or interested in mating with multiple males, inside a warm safe pouch in their body. It was a very sensitive area, shared with his other sex organs, and he was now truly disturbed by the idea of Sendak tearing them apart. He let out a confused cry as the large Mer sent crackles of electricity into the delicate pocket, the pulses going through every nerve synapse inside and leaving him raw to the touch. 

‘No,’ he gasped, ‘Please don’t.’ 

His mind was so clouded by terror and the absurdity of what the larger Galra was trying to do, eat his sexual organs, or rip him apart from the inside out. It wasn’t until Sendak plunged a huge finger into the tiny channel of his pouch that he realized the larger Mer was not trying to intimidate him, but was actually intent on his desecration. 

‘AAAAhhhh!!’ His back arched and he thrashed in pain at the sensation of the huge digit pushing into one of the most sensitive parts of him, then releasing little sparks, causing the channel to clench and then fall completely slack. Sendak paused, staring into Shiro before dipping down and tasting the already raw hole. The lapping of his rough tongue encouraged Shiro’s dual cocks to emerge and he was desperately grinding against the huge mouth. What was happening? Was he going to eat him? Sendak’s tongue was highly stimulating, he was teasing him before the pain. A large finger was delving into his channel and slipping easily into his now slack brood pouch. It was joined by a second and it felt numb as all sensation shot through his cocks. Sendak was big enough to fit both of them into his mouth, and Shiro was not small by any means. 

‘Mmmm ahhhh,,’ Shiro begged breathlessly, squirming against Sendak’s fingers and mouth. ‘Don’t eat them!’’

His arms were still dead on his sides, so he attempted to buck the large Mer off- but Sendak went to bite down, razor teeth now grazing the sensitive tissue of his flagging erections. Shiro went still, not wanting to lose them by angering him.

They were completely buried down Sendak’s throat and it was deep and hot. All it would take was a quick snap. Why was this happening? Was this a Galra display of dominance? A third finger was forced into him, and then they were curling upwards, dragging against the base of his claspers. He felt the jolt of electricity pulsing through them and felt his body almost bending as he saw stars, cocks flooding Sendak’s mouth with his release. Shiro was practically convulsing with fear and climax as Sendak lifted off of him, licking his lips. The water was flooded with pheromones and he gagged at the smell.

Shiro lay prone on the seabed, limp and waiting for Sendak to swim away. He was softening against his chest and his brood pouch was open for display. He felt incredibly weak after such a long chase and now he could barely breathe over the pheromones and stirred up sediment in the water. He sat up to see Sendak circling, cocks fully out and aroused, each one almost the width of of both of his combined. Shiro suddenly felt incredibly disturbed. A large hand gripped him around his waist and lifted him off the seabed. 

‘Are you beginning to figure out what is going to happen next?,’ Sendak was purring, holding him fast against his body and slipping several fingers back into his slit. 

‘Nyyygg,’ Shiro groaned, thrashing weakly against the fingers as they went deeper and rubbed him open. 

‘You can open up as much as you want for me,’ Sendak was in his face, mouth against his and tongue licking Shiro’s eyes and his hair and his jawline. ‘Once I’m in you we’ll be stuck until we return to base.’ 

Shiro felt cold dread spread through his body. ‘N-no, no, no you can’t.’ He was very aware of the twin heat of Sendak’s claspers rubbing dangerously close to his.. The larger Mer didn’t even respond to his terrified entreaties, instead removing the multiple fingers from Shiro’s very sore hole. He cried out, weakly struggling in Sendak’s vice grip. Even with his arms limp at his sides, he swung with a shoulder at the larger Mer’s gaping eye wound. It glanced off of him and Sendak retaliated hard, striking him several times in quick succession until his mouth and face were bloody and his mind woozy. 

‘I am done with fighting.’ He heard Sendak say as he tried to regain balance.

He felt the prehensile tip of one of Sendak’s cocks dip into his channel and it clenched, recognizing this object as being too large to fit. It was slick with mucus and it was leaking copiously, leaving him lubricated. There was enough to start dribbling out of his pouch. He felt a hand dip down and stroke over the stretched skin around Sendak’s cock. He stilled for a moment at the sensation and felt his channel empty. Sendak thrust his heavy torso forward and pushed past the delicate muscle keeping him out, sinking completely into Shiro, like a greedy eel. His brood pouch stretched to accommodate it and he was breathless, arcing back and screaming silently. He couldn’t fit, he was going to tear through him, he could feel his own heartbeat and Sendak’s in the same place. The large Mer covered his mouth with his and began to swim lazily, his other erect clasper rubbing in-between them. He continued to stroke around Shiro’s stuffed pouch slowly and methodically, lapping up his pained cries. 

‘Good,’ he punctuated his low praises with rubbing, milking mucus from his free cock and spreading it over Shiro’s slit. He swam, Shiro was impaled on him, and clenching from the friction. Sendak was huge, but he was accommodating him. He felt stretched and sore, but not mortally wounded. It was better than being eaten alive. It was better than being tortured and maimed. Shiro squeezed his eyes shut, remembering how the Galra pack had torn through all of his Mer companions over the course of a few weeks. He could live through this. He would survive. He had to believe that. There was no shame in this, if he survived it.

He let Sendak guide them through the water. The large Mer was starting to move, rolling his tail to grind his large clasper around in small circles. It was stretching Shiro’s already abused slit, but he couldn’t do much to resist the torture with his arms still paralyzed. He couldn’t keep from letting out cries of pain, the intensity of having his internal organs bruised over and over, but he could close his eyes from the violation. The large mer had massaged Shiro’s slit enough that combined with his cock stretching him out he was slipping fingers in as well. The slow, circular grinding was like a poisonous bite, each rotation becoming more painful than the last. 

‘You are shaking,’ Sendak released his swollen phallus and pulled Shiro in to taste his open mouth. ‘But this is what you need.’ He ran his wide tongue over the smaller Mers. It tasted like blood, metal and electricity. ‘Once you are stretched enough you will fit me perfectly.’ 

Shiro leaned away from the source of the methodical, slow torture. He was crying in earnest now, knowing that Sendak was not going to be finished anytime soon, and that pain beyond what he had experienced was coming. The Galra seemed to feast on his tears, licking hungrily at his face, teeth flashing enough to make Shiro wince, but never breaking skin. His huge clasper was now slipping in and out of Shiro’s sore hole, mating with it, lubricated by his attention. He had stretched Shiro enough that he could happily rut with his brood pouch. He pulled out, growling with arousal and then his dual cocks were tightening, pulling together and leaking more of the mucus, a thread of it trailing behind out of the tips. Even after all of his mental preparation, Shiro started to whimper in fear as Sendak slicked his fingers into his hole and opened it wider. It was gaping obscenely, cold water rushing into his pouch. The channel to his pouch was pink and swollen, shining with Sendak’s secretions. Sendak moved to align their tails. 

He screamed. ‘STOP, please I can’t breed-’

Sendak looked into his face as he started to bury both of his swollen erections into Shiro. The pain was intense, the stretching going beyond what his body should be capable of. He felt paralyzed, staring back at Sendak as the large Mer released plume after plume of pheromone, announcing his mating to the entire Galra pack and any other creature nearby. He could see their dark forms circling, excited and aroused by the display.

‘I know.’ Sendak replied, staring down at his tormented expression.

His slit was prolapsing around the middle of Sendak’s claspers and the huge Mer broke from Shiro’s gaze first to moan with pleasure as it swelled, tightening around him. The muscles in Shiro’s tail were all giving out and it twitched and sagged as Sendak pulled him along. Covered by the light of Sendak’s brilliant bioluminescent arm and eyes, Shiro could feel himself losing consciousness, and had never felt so grateful in his life for the dark edges in his vision. 

He woke, sometime later. He felt that he had been pierced by something, that he had been harvested and chopped into bits. Sensation returned like a poisonous bite, and he felt that he was in Sendak’s arms. He looked between them and saw his slit, still stuffed and ruined, completely stretched around Sendak. He was even deeper than before, and Shiro felt swollen and heavy. He was sick realizing that Sendak had been depositing copious amounts of semen inside of his pouch. They were swimming at a fast pace, the Galra on a current that was pulling them several knots faster their missile shaped bodies cruising well beyond Shiro’s maximum speed. At this pace, they would be back at the base within a day or two. He felt his heart sink, depression and pain guiding him back to unconsciousness. 

‘And how did your captive fare? Still alive?’ They were in a cave, something manmade, there were sensors everywhere, the water was humming with electricity. 

‘Yes, my lord. Alive and well, very well. I believe he can be moved to Phase Two.’

‘That is good news. I knew he could not be so big for nothing.’

Shiro felt the pinch of a needle and his vision spun again, his grasp of his surroundings ephemeral as a dream. 

\-----------------------------------------------------

He felt the cold floor and shallow water and beat his tail in a panic. His gills worked frantically and he was seized by the instinct to escape, no matter what. He panicked and rushed forward, colliding hard with a wall. The pain blossomed across his arm and he felt his missing limb twitch with sympathy. There was someone talking to him. 

‘Hey now, it's okay, easy EASY.’ He propelled away, heart still fluttering. ‘Easy, Shiro.’

He smelled the human then, the faint sweat on his hand in the water. He felt his heart slow. It was his human, the one who had picked him off the beach and swam with him in the tank. 

He was safe. 

He took in his surroundings, he was in a tank, about 8 feet deep and in the shape of a large circle. It was filled with some kelp, sea urchins and rocks. They must have been added while he had slept. The human was outside of it on a ladder, slowly swirling his hand in the water. The human called himself Keith. Shiro swam to him slowly, coming up to press his face in his hand and then rubbed along it to let Keith touch his tail. It was comforting, the tactile sensation pulling Shiro from his terrible memories. He swam back and forth, under Keith’s hand to receive gentle caresses and reassurances. 

‘You okay? Did you forget where you were?’ Keith was to the point. 

Shiro rolled onto his back, exposing his chest. ‘Yes. I thought I was...still somewhere else.’

Keith pet his collarbone in gentle circles. ‘I’d like to know more about where you are from, but I did some analysis of your body type and the computer measurements are telling me that you’re pretty underweight. I think eating takes priority to talking right now.’

Shiro felt his appetite stir inside of him. The truth was that Keith smelled delicious and being near him was making his mouth water. 

‘I would...really like that.’ he rolled over. ‘You’ve brought me food?’

‘Yeahhhh….about that,’ Keith was looking down at him with wide eyes. ‘I only have frozen fish, I hope that’s okay.’

‘I’ll take anything.’ Shiro’s stomach tightened in expectation. 

‘Okay,’ Keith lifted up a bucket filled with frozen sardines, mullet and herring. ‘This is what I have right now, is there anything you want in partic-’ he barely got out a word as Shiro lunged forward and grabbed the bucket. Keith instinctively leapt backwards. Shiro was unbelievably strong. Keith climbed down the ladder and peered into tank, watching the Mer devour the fish in efficient, ravenous gulps. 

Shiro ate greedily, swallowing every bit. His stomach wasn’t used to this much food and it felt sore, but good. His tail flicked and he swam around the tank, speeding back and forth with Keith’s bucket. The human was smiling against the glass and watching him. Shiro rose out of the water and leaned over the edge handing the bucket back. 

‘You looked like you needed that.’ Keith jogged up to him to reach out and take it from his hands. ‘Was it good?’

‘It was perfect.’ He watched the human, and was pleased when he offered his hand up to touch. Shiro took his fingers. Now that he felt full, he was eager to experience gentle communication, and the human seemed happy and interested. 

‘Hey,’ Keith squeezed his offered hand. ‘I know it’s hard and you’re just recovering, but when I found you, you said some stuff that I need to ask about.’

Shiro’s smiled faded and he nodded seriously. ‘I understand.’

Keith was silent, obviously having a long internal conversation before starting. ‘I want you to know that there’s no group that I owe anything to, any request you have, I’ll do my best to satisfy it. I’m not sure if you’ve had great experiences with humans, but you trusted me and I won’t let you down.’

‘You are very kind,’ Shiro responded. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve it. All you’ve done is help me since the moment you saw me.’

‘Most humans are assholes.’ Keith replied, something bitter in his tone. ‘I’d rather help you than waste my time on them.’

Shiro saw a glimmer of Keith’s pain and leaned down to touch his face. ‘You look too young to be so tired of your kind.’

‘It’s true.’ Keith let Shiro touch him. 

Shiro tucked back a lock of Keith’s thick hair behind his ear. ‘I have met some very cruel humans. But I also have met ones like you.’

Keith huffed and put his hands on his hips in an adorable display of distrust. ‘I knew a human helped do this to you. Any idea who they were?’

Shiro closed his eyes. ‘This may sound like an excuse but...I am still trying to remember everything. I’m afraid that I may have experienced some trauma to my head and...I am putting pieces together.’

‘Some trauma,’ Keith chuckled pushing the portable staircase against the tank. ‘When I first saw you it looked like you were going to break a boulder with your head.’

Shiro opened his eyes. ‘Oh yes, the storm. I barely remember it. I must have hit my head very hard that night. But there are things I’m beginning to recall.’ He moved backwards to give Keith space as he climbed up the staircase, removing his shirt. ‘I remember you for instance.’

‘I’m glad.’

The Mer fell silent, watching Keith strip down to some tight swath of cloth around his groin. ‘Uh..’ the human paused. ‘Do you care if I take this off, it’s not very comfortable when it’s wet.’

‘Why would I mind?’ Shiro flicked his tail at a leisurely pace around the pool. ‘Oh, I remember, humans are sometimes shy about exposing their skin.’ 

He watched as Keith turned red. It was a pleasing color. 

‘It doesn’t bother me at all, Keith. Please be comfortable.’ His shy human stripped his last layer and jumped into the tank all skin and soft hair. Shiro glided around and took Keith’s hand, pulling him with his powerful movements. The hands crept up his arm until the human was hanging on to his shoulder, letting out shouts of delight as he dove and carried Keith to the bottom of the tank and back up again. 

‘You feel like you’re okay overall, just mostly banged up and bruised, and in need of more food.’ Keith was feeling his torso and tail for any sore spots. Shiro jumped at the sensation of Keith’s fingers gently passing over his slit. It was a brief moment, the human was just looking over his tail, but it made Shiro remember pain and he ducked his head down for a moment in shame. 

‘You okay?’ Keith moved back up to touch his face. 

‘Yeah.’ Shiro smiled weakly at Keith. ‘I remembered something.’

Keith treaded water beside him and watched. ‘What is it?’

Better not to share most of his newfound memories. ‘I was being pursued...the Galra.’ Shiro left Keith and swam around the pool to gather his thoughts. He dove down and listened to the current being pumped in from below. He was safe here, for the first time in ages, and his body needed time to recover from the long torturous tenure in captivity. He flinched, feeling a ghost hand on his tail. He surfaced and started back towards Keith. 

‘They were far behind me, when I left them, but they might come this far to look. I shouldn’t stay here long, but I’m not sure where I was supposed to be headed.’

He shook his head. ‘I need time.’

Keith moved back to the edge of the tank and climbed out. ‘You’ll get lots of time here. And I have two friends that are brilliant engineers, they’ll be joining us later to help come up with a way to replace that arm.’

Shiro paused in the water. ‘Replace?’

Keith nodded, pulling his pants back on around his waist. ‘Yeah, they’re really brilliant, they can create prosthetics. A new arm for you so that you can swim easier.’ 

Shiro looked at the bruised stump of the missing arm and floated stationary in the tank. He didn’t think about replacing it after he had lost it. It was something he had just come to accept as being gone. If he had a replacement he would be able to really swim again- and fight as well. 

Keith was talking aloud, his tone dry and monotone. ‘Anyway, I only have about one more day’s worth of frozen fish and then I’m going to have to catch some more. How much do you eat in a day?’ He looked over at Shiro, who was still floating on the surface. ‘Do you remember that?’

The shark mer mulled over the question for a moment. ‘I eat a few times a day, usually fish.’ He swam close to the edge of the tank. ‘I need to eat more than most though, since I am larger.’

Keith sighed and started to plan how to solve this problem. He couldn’t just go to the grocery store and start buying bags of fish. Town was almost an hour away, and plus the people there weren’t very friendly with him. Not since he’d gotten into a fight at the local bar because a man there had been aggressively offended with the way Keith looked. He’d have to play the nursemaid and catch fish himself. It wasn’t like the facility wasn’t loaded with all the tools he needed, it even had a little boat with a motor to lay out crab traps. He decided to spend the day fishing and getting the tackle fixed. Shiro looked like he needed to rest, he was already flagging in the water. 

 

Keith spent the morning pulling out crab pots and baiting them with frozen fish. He checked for holes and dents in the wire. He used his beat up truck to back the small motor boat loaded with the crab pots down to the boat slip. The cold of the waves hit his bare feet and he lept in, starting the engine. It was later in the year and the crabs would be fat. He tossed the pots over board one by one, giving them distance and marking them with bright buoys. Some curious seagulls circled his boat, interested in anything they could forage off the water and he stopped for a moment to watch them. It was a pair, gliding in the air, hardly beating their wings. They were joined by a third and they circled, in a wordless dance. 

Keith had always been alone, no family to talk of besides a crazy dad who was never home, and then a foster system that was very good at reminding him he wasn’t wanted. He had been okay with that. There was nothing humanity had given him that made him want to swallow more of the homogenized bullshit that everyone seemed to live for. He hadn’t cared for company or friends until he’d med Pidge and Hunk. They were different. They were okay. Pidge had lost her family when she was still in school and he knew her through the system. 

But...he felt different suddenly about Shiro. It was strange, but he was really drawn to the Mer. He wanted to be liked by Shiro, and he wanted to swim with him and make him smile. And even more importantly, he wanted to protect him from whatever had torn him up so badly. 

He started planning a schedule for himself, so that he would be able to wake up and collect the pots before feeding Shiro. It felt, weirdly great to take care of something. He barely knew the Mer. He shouldn’t feel so attached, but all Keith wanted to do was be near him and talk to him and take care of him. 

As Keith dropped the last crab pot into the ocean he looked over the horizon at the crystal colored waves and turned the boat back towards the shore. He didn’t see the large fin that crested the waves behind him and the hooded eyes following him as he aimed for the boat slip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your feedback and kind words! I am working hard to have weekly posts. Chapter 3 is almost finished. Lance is going to appear in the next update.


	3. Tidepool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith goes fishing and catches a lot more than he expected. Also Lance! Interspecies sexual relations! Isolation!

Chapter 3:

 

Shiro knew this time that he was dreaming. It wasn’t lucid, instead he was trapped, paralyzed by the nightmare unfolding. He was strapped to a steel table, tight restraints on his tail and chest and arms. He could move his head slightly, and saw someone hard at work, elbow deep in gore and viscera, a woman screaming until the vocal cords were shredding. He smelled the blood thick in the room. The figures wearing white coats, spattered in red blood, were now holding little purple bodies in their arms. Young, they were holding human pups, but there was something wrong with them. They didn’t have the correct skin tone, and they weren’t making any noise. 

‘They are alive, but they are not as big as they should be.’ It was Haggar, the head of the operating room. ‘Unfortunately we lost the carrier. Give her body to the Galra.’ The techs around her moved away, carting the bloody mess with them. 

Shiro tensed as he felt Haggar approach him. ‘And you, you have been a busy one.’ She was replacing her gloves and then rubbing a gel over his stomach and lower abdomen. ‘Sendak tells me you’ve taken a brood, lets see how capable you are at carrying.’ She was prodding his slit and that’s when he felt….them stirring inside. The heavens and depths didn’t prepare him for the sensation of being a surrogate for the Galra. He gasped as she easily put her hand into him and felt around his channel. She cupped around his pouch and fondled several of the growing young inside of him. ‘That’s better, good development, faster too. Humans are really a waste in the end, we’d be better off if we just found a way to make your kind walk on land. Then we could just part ways with the pitiful race and be done with it.’

She scoffed. ‘Look at me talking to you, like you have any idea what I’m saying.’

Shiro groaned as she pulled her hand out of him. He had purposefully kept it a secret that he could understand her. He needed the humans to slip up if he had any hope of escape. 

‘You probably won’t survive passing these little terrors anyway.’ She pulled off her gloves and he squirmed. There were hoses of water funneling into his gills, but she had made sure to force him to use his secondary lungs in the lab as well. ‘Well you’re a big healthy boy, even if Sendak has chewed on you a little.’ 

She turned to an assistant, coming to her side with several large syringes. 

‘Give him a five percent increase on vitamins and keep him in the solitary pool for the next week, I want to monitor his growth closely. He could be a potential key solution to our brooding problem.’ 

‘Yes, Dr. Haggar.’ The assistant replied, pulling on safety glasses and advancing with the syringes. It wasn’t until they were pricking the skin in his dream that Shiro woke up. 

He blinked rapidly and realized it was night. The tank room was empty. He was alone. He sighed and circled around, trying to remember more about his captivity. Dr. Haggar. Yes...she had performed the amputation on his arm. It had been unable to heal fully after his fight with Sendak, and he had tried to escape a third time. She had removed it and isolated him. He hadn’t been able to fight off Sendak or any of the other Galra as effectively after that. 

Shiro brushed up against the edge of the tank and scraped across it. How long had he been there. It had felt like a lifetime. It was so different from the comfortable tank here, with the sweet young human that wanted to feed him, and the hum from the ocean currents. It was dark still, and he swam in circles, contemplating the changes in his routine, now that he wasn’t chained. He rotated in circles, until finally his eyes slipped shut and he returned to sleep. 

\-----------------

Shiro was not the only one who was having trouble sleeping. Keith lay awake, looking at the ceiling of his little room, thinking about the Mer in the tank, and also about himself. Being on the run. A refugee from a seemingly unstoppable force, where it felt like you could never rest or drop your guard. That was something he could identify with. Back when it was him and his dad. Keith curled up with his blanket, holding his pillow. Dad had always been stuffing him in cars and looking over his shoulder. Always telling him not to trust doctors, police, teachers. They never stayed anywhere long, and his dad just left him with books and questions, always vanishing for months at a time. The feeling of anxiety and distrust never went away, and Keith had only started finding peace because of the lighthouse job. Shiro, he reminded him of himself- and a little bit of his dad too. The last time Keith had heard from his dad, he’d pretty much said goodbye forever, and he couldn’t help wondering, even then, what his dad was trying to protect him from. 

He buried his head into the pillow, a sharp stinging sensation spreading in his eyes. 

Keith woke up just as the sun was cresting over the ocean. His eyes felt crusty from salt in his lashes. He bundled up, putting on his waders and a scarf. He was determined to stock up on food for Shiro and he wasn’t going to waste his precious moments of winter light pulling up crab pots if he could help it. He pushed the boat out, hopping in before the water rose above his waders and motored to the first buoys. He pulled the crab pot up, and knew that something was wrong right away. The pots had been opened, and the fish bait that he had placed inside them was gone. 

The hell? Keith left the pot in the boat and travelled to the next one. Just like the first, the bait had been meticulously removed. Keith shook his head and collected the next trap. After about an hour, he had a pile of empty cages and no crabs. He was at a loss- he had used a good part of the food meant for Shiro as bait and had nothing to show for it except questions. He couldn’t help but think that either there were very devious crabs in the ocean- or perhaps a cunning Mer was messing with him. 

There was a part of his paranoid nature that was afraid the Galra had already found him. But surely they wouldn’t just have stolen his bait. He felt a chill. Shiro, could they have gotten to him? He turned his boat back and headed to shore. He tethered it to the boat slip and pulled it out of the water, far up enough to avoid the tide. He made a mad dash for the lab and slammed the door open to see Shiro, happily arranging the kelp in his tank. He saw Keith enter and turned slowly, showing the broad side of his tail, laced with scars. 

‘Hello Keith.’ he reared up, pressing the flat of his belly against the wall to support his human torso leaning over the edge and beckoning. 

‘Hey,’ Keith breathed. ‘Sorry, I just wanted to check on you.’ He jogged up, reaching out to touch him. 

‘Is something wrong?’ Shiro took his hand and squeezed it, leaning down to itch his tail agianst the tank. 

‘Uhm, I’m not doing very well with getting you food. If I don’t catch anything soon I’ll have to head out to town to pick up some fish.’ He felt like total shit admitting that Shiro’s breakfast was lost, but he wasn’t going to accept defeat just yet. He didn’t care if he spent his whole stipend feeding him.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.’ Shiro squeezed him again before letting go and scratching the scar on his nose. ‘If you’re having trouble catching fish, I know that the some come in on the surf at high tide to eat little crabs that dig in the sand. So you could collect some as bait and probably have some good luck.

Keith blinked in interest. He had planned on using the rest of the frozen fish, but Shiro’s idea was way better. 

‘Would not have thought of that without you.’

Keith saw that Shiro was irritated and itching harder. 

‘You okay?’

‘Ughhh, I think I have sunburn.’ Shiro was sheepish, and looked down at his tail. ‘Its making my scars really want for some scratching. I’ve been rubbing against the tank all morning.’

‘Ohhhhh, shit, you were on the beach all morning.’ Keith slapped his forehead. ‘What do you do for it?’ He was grabbing the portable stairs to climb up and get a better look without a second thought. 

‘Not much, just itch a lot. And hope for a quick death.’ Shiro drooped over the tank, giving Kieth a long - suffering look. 

‘Ha ha, says the guy who let me cut a ring out of him without so much as a complaint.’ Keith dipped his fingers into the water and Shiro passed under them, sighing happily as Keith scratched his skin. 

‘Ahhhhhhhh, please don’t stop.’ He dipped and turned for a second pass and Keith had both hands in the water, rubbing around his fins in particular. 

‘I should get some tackle lines set up and see if I can get food to help hydrate you.’ Keith scratched harder, pleased by the sounds Shiro was making before giving his hind quarters a firm slap. ‘I’ll get us that breakfast and then I’ll be back.’

‘Will you swim with me again? Pulling the extra weight is helping me recover, and I like the company.’ Shiro almost looked like a puppy, because his tail was wagging back and forth. Keith’s stomach felt warm and heavy. 

‘Yeah, of course I will.’ His cheeks were hot. 

He climbed down the portable stairs and grabbed a bucket and a small spade to dig for mole crabs. They were the size of a cashew nut and they wriggled in and out of the surf as waves crashed down. A lot of fish loved to eat them. He followed the waves as they came in and scooped up handfuls of sand, several of the little crabs in each handful. He was well stocked with bait by the time he was finished and marched up to the cliff edge to set up some lines into the ocean. 

The fishing poles were older, but they were still sturdy, and Keith could cast a line like a pro after Hunk had forced him to keep the bulkier man company as he fished all summer. He set up two poles, supporting them in the concrete bases his coworkers had poured a few years ago. He was munching on a granola bar, contemplating what he would have to get from the store in town to arouse the least amount of suspicion. Maybe a bunch of bulk goods, like rice and beans wouldn’t stir up too much idle chatter. Keith didn't have much money to spare, this job barely paid enough for luxuries, but maybe he could pick up some of those frozen packs of filets and supplement Shiro with fish he caught. 

Also, Keith wanted to be sure that Galra didn’t sneak into the lab somehow in the night and murder his Mer, so he was contemplating purchasing a hammock for the lab. He could just hook a space heater up if he got cold, and sleep near the tank. Shiro would probably like that, because he seemed to have pretty intense nightmares, and waking up alone had to be pretty hard. Most Mer were really social, tactile creatures, and Keith was sure that Shiro missed the communicating. They touched every time they talked, and that wasn’t a coincidence, not after the third or fourth time. He was probably starving and totally alone when he got to Keith, the worst situation to be in, but he’d survived and he seemed to be mostly intact. 

Keith was about to check his cellphone when one of his lines started to bend and pull. He skipped over to it and and gripped the pole, starting to work the line. It felt really heavy, like there was a big fish attached to the end of it. Keith let out a whoop of excitement and started to fight it, the line pulled tight until he had to let out some tension to avoid snapping it. He fought with the fish as it darted back and forth in the surf. It was starting to weaken as he reeled it closer. Then it leapt out of the water, becoming airborne, dappled spots and voracious mouth gaping open. Keith immediately recognized it as a Lingcod, a delicious fish that Shiro would no doubt love. It could probably feed him for a few days! As he gasped in anticipation, another form lept out of the water. 

It was long, sleek and a fan filled with the radiant colors of the ocean fluffed up. It was attached to a tan torso, with a foxy-faced Mer, currently wrapping his long slim arms around Keith’s fish and grinning like an fool. There was an explosion of froth and seafoam and them in a moment the Mer emerged a tail sticking out of his mouth in a wanton display of greed. 

‘HEY’ Keith yelled, ‘Let go of my fish you idiot!’ 

The Mer turned to Keith and stared. Its large blue eyes narrowed into slits. And then it swallowed the rest of the fish whole, before tugging at Keith’s line, almost pulling him into the surf.

Keith was already swearing words he barely remembered, and the Mer continued to pull against him, using his body weight and fan in the current to drag Keith closer and closer to the water. 

‘Let GO, you floating pile of shit!’ He whipped the rod back and yanked the Mer forward, who let out a squawk of indignation, either at Keith’s actions or his words, he couldn’t tell. 

‘How dare you!!’ the Mer DID seem to understand the spoken word. ‘It’s not YOUR ocean, and finders keepers.’ 

Keith instantly realized that this was probably the culprit for all his missing crab pot bait as well. ‘You asshole, you’ve been stealing all of my bait and chasing the fish away this whole day! What are you, awful at catching your own food?’ 

The lean tanned torso of the sleek Mer stuck even further out of the water. ‘WHAT DID YOU SAY? I’ll have you know I’m the fastest swimmer in the entire North Sea.’

Keith yanked hard and the line snapped, he stumbled back, but at least in possession of his fishing rod. 

‘What good does that do if you don’t know how to catch a damned thing yourself?’

‘Why do it myself when I can get your dumb butt to do it?’ The Mer pointed his long digits at Keith. His colloquial speech patterns definitely made Keith think that this Mer had been around humans. 

‘I’m trying to catch these fish for someone, I’d appreciate it if you stole from any other human.’ Keith tried to grind out some sort of truce, for Shiro’s sake. He didn’t have time to be running around fighting with another Mer, his second ever, and very different in personality as well. He’d have to head into town and avoid the blue-tailed jerk currently streaking back and forth, showing off how fast he was. 

‘Hey!’ The blue Mer stopped mid sprint to turn to Keith. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Well since you’ve scared off all the fish, now I have to go buy some.’ 

‘Good, more food for me!’ The blue tail slapped the surface of the water in a self-congratulatory clap. 

What the hell. It reminded Keith of most of the humans he tried to avoid. ‘For your information,’ he rounded and yelled, collecting his second fishing pole. ‘An injured Mer is in need of my facilities care, and I’m trying to make sure they get lots of fresh food and protein to recover from being attacked. So I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve, but your kind should be able to understand basic empathy.’ 

The blue mer looked taken aback and stared at Keith, narrowing their eyes in slits. 

‘I don’t beliiiiiieve you.’ he said slowly. ‘No way you’re such a nice guy.’

‘I don’t give a shit what you think.’ Keith replied and walked away. 

He hurried back into the lab, slamming the rods down angrily. Shiro swam to the surface to watch him. He tilted his head and seemed to understand that Keith had been unsuccessful in his fishing venture. 

‘Your advice was great.’ Keith said, pulling off his waders one by one and draping them over a chair. ‘I caught a really big fish, but some shitty Mer is down there and he’s been zipping around eating everything I catch.’

Shiro’s eyebrows raised. ‘Another Mer? Is it lost?’

‘Who knows.’ Keith slunk to the personnel lockers and got a pair of jeans out, slipping them over his legs and fitting them tight to his skinny hips. ‘It’s not very bright. It’s DEFINITELY not Galra. It just wants a free meal, and I think it’s going to play a waiting game with me. But that’s fine, I have enough money to last you a couple weeks.’ Keith pulled out his jacket and threw it over his shoulders. 

‘I’m going to be gone for a few hours, I have to drive to town and the road is not going to be great because of the storm.’ He fished for his wallet and keys before nodding to Shiro, who was hanging over the edge, looking concerned. 

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back with food and some supplies.’ He felt compelled to walk closer to the tank and reach out to Shiro again. The Mer was leaning over the edge with a wistful smile on his face. Keith aimed for his shoulder but overreached and his fingers grazed his cheek. Shiro didn’t mind, and he let Keith smooth the tuft of white hair falling over his eyes back. 

‘You are so purposeful.’ Shiro spoke lowly. 

Keith snorted and rolled his eyes. ‘I always just thought I was a jerk.’

Shiro’s tail waved slowly in the tank. ‘Anything but, honestly.’ 

His arm swept down, gripping Keith’s jacket. ‘I’ll be waiting for you, and then we can have that swim together.’

Keith felt his face heat up. ‘Yeah, I’ll be really fast.’

He took a moment to meet Shiro’s eyes, smile and then step back. He jogged to the car, because he was actually dying to get into the tank again. It had been one of the best experiences in his life, and a dream of his. 

The big truck that the facility let him use handled the gravel roads well, bouncing lightly in the puddles. It was a drive through empty farmland, curtained by fog and grey mist, before intersecting the paved road that connected to the nearest town. It was a seasonal population, with a large number of now empty vacation cottages. The locals didn’t really like Keith. They had all lived there for decades and he was some young, strange looking kid coming in and taking a job, staying away from the bars and not patronizing any of the local vices. The grocery store was a 6 aisle shop, but they had a freezer just for whole fish. Keith covered up his purchases with some personal shopping effects; a razor, soap, instant soup, a bundle of lemons, a camping hammock and to his delight, some local fresh bait. If the pesky Mer was gone, he’d be able to use it. If he wasn’t, maybe he could dump the whole bucket on his annoying head. The old woman at the counter blinked at him with an apathetic sigh. 

‘That’ll be 150.00’ She held out her hand, watching as Keith counted out bills carefully from his wallet. He had just enough for the groceries and gas. 

After packing up the truck, he headed back. The sun was setting under the horizon, and he felt a twinge of guilt for not being able to feed Shiro sooner. Hopefully it wouldn’t affect his long term healing. Who knew if having sunburn would make his other injuries worse?

 

\-------

When Keith pulled in to the Lighthouse, the sky was dark and quiet. The sea was demure, with the sound of the waves barely audible. He walked the groceries in each hand to the facility and set them down by the tank. He stopped and stared at Shiro, who was now swimming fast enough to create a trench in the water where his body cut the liquid with its force and inertia. Shiro saw him and smiled before kicking his tail and leaping up. He rose from the tank, completely airborne, reaching his arm out to the sky. With one last flick, he fell backwards and sank into the water. He lay still for a second before rolling over and swimming to the edge. 

‘You look great!’ Keith clapped the wall excitedly. ‘I can’t believe I just saw that.’

Shiro looked bashful as Keith fished out a whole frozen salmon from a bag. ‘My town has a big salmon haul every year, I hope that’s good enough.’ He set it on the edge of the tank and Shiro took it gingerly. 

‘Oh yes, this is beautiful.’ Shiro swam backwards and was then submerged. Keith watched him eat, noting how SHiro looked different when he was hungry- more like a predator. His eyes dilated, and his teeth seemed longer. He definitely could hold his own, especially once he got some bulk back. Keith smiled and walked to his other bag, pulling out the hammock and laying it where he wanted to set it up to sleep. He’d have to install reinforcements, but after tonight he’d be sleeping in the lab with Shiro. Keith made himself an instant soup in the lab microwave and drank it carefully while Shiro gobbled up the frozen salmon. Keith watched him out of the corner of his eye and saw that Shiro’s teeth were sharp enough to sever right through the fish like it was sponge cake. When he was finished there was nothing left, not even bone. He looked very happy and his swimming pace was languid. 

Keith slurped his noodles and watched the way Shiro’s powerful tail created small eddies in the tank behind him. 

He finally surfaced a few minutes later, looking at Keith openly. ‘Are you going to join me?’ Shiro’s expression made Keith’s toes tingle. 

‘Yeah,’ Keith replied, tossing his empty container in the trash. He kicked off his shoes and socks and started to pull off his pants and underwear. He left them all in a messy pile on the ground, followed by his shirt and jacket. He ignored the wait a half hour before swimming rule. He was standing naked and in front of a Mer, feeling very comfortable with Shiro’s gaze this time around. 

‘I’m coming right now.’ He walked up the portable staircase, eyes lowered to look at the water.

Keith jumped into the tank, not for the first time pleasantly surprised by how little the cold bothered him. Shiro swam once around him, then met him, pressing his head into Keith’s stomach and wrapping an arm around his waist. Keith responded in kind, clinging to Shiro as he started to carry him around the tank. Keith wrapped a leg around Shiro to feel his tail moving. He felt a twinge of arousal and swallowed. 

Shiro dove, again and again. The underside of his tail was incredibly soft, and felt like silk or velvet rubbing his belly. It was the closest Keith had allowed himself to be with someone, perhaps because the Mer wasn’t human made it easier to feel safe. They went under and Keith closed his eyes, clinging to Shiro’s waist and feeling his chest ripple, the gills pumping in the water. Keith dipped his fingers down to stroke them, careful to avoid where Shiro had been ripped. The Mer’s tail seemed to shiver at his touch, and they surfaced. Keith gasped and wrapped a leg around Shiro for better grip, grinning from ear to ear. 

‘Everything okay?’ Shiro looked like he was having fun too. He had a gentle smile spreading across his face. He had a lot more energy, he had been fed and now he was getting to play with his human, who had saved him and now was so incredibly vulnerable in his territory. With one arm, he loosened Keith off his waist and cupped him under his chest, tucking him like he would a pup.

Keith’s fingers were on Shiro’s neck and shoulders, scratching the scars and relieving some of the irritation from the sunburn. He arched back, still holding the human in his arm and letting him tear with blunt fingernails at his skin. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Keith replied bashfully, ‘I just can’t believe you let me this close.’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Shiro bumped his head against Keith’s and rolled his shoulders. 

‘It- I just, we’re really different species but you seem to be really comfortable.’ 

‘I trusted you with my life.’ Shiro shivered as Keith rubbed a particularly large scar on his pectoral muscle. ‘And you are the one who is helpless in the tank.’ 

He let his arm fall to his side so that Keith could kick his legs in the water, feet extended out and peddling idly in the current. 

‘I can’t swim as well as you but I’m pretty good at swimming.’ Keith replied, kicking his long limbs and pushing Shiro’s large body through the tank. The shark Mer laughed and let himself be guided through the pool before falling limp and becoming dead weight. He started to sink, dragging Keith with him. 

‘No fair!’ Keith shouted, laughing as he was pulled under.

He sucked in a deep breath of air and they twined around until Shiro was at the bottom of the tank, rolling onto his back and Keith was rolling with him. Keith’s eyes were open underwater and Shiro could see Keith’s smile. He was straddling Shiro, purely a creature of the water, free and feeling all of the current and the dance. The shark Mer pulled him along the bottom of the tank slowly, holding Keith’s hand with his arm. He stayed down with SHiro for what seemed like much too long for a human’s lung capacity, but before the Mer could feel greater anxiety for his welfare he tapped his chest and Shiro was taking them back up to air. They breached the water and Keith took in a deep breath, clinging to Shiro’s chest again. His eyes opened slowly, they were a deep indigo, like the dark parts of the ocean.

Shiro’s eyes trailed down Keith’s body, his upper torso similar enough to Mer anatomy for Shiro to find him strikingly beautiful. Now that the shroud of near-death had been pulled from his thoughts, Shiro felt both gratitude and genuine affection for his heroic young companion. His legs were odd in motion to Shiro, but seeing Keith move on land he was just as graceful as his upper half, and lean with muscle and flexible tendon. Humans were strange, not just because of their bipedal lower half, but also because of their external genitalia. Keith’s pink cock, which was fat just from a swim, was greedily bobbing against his stomach. Shiro tilted his head at the obvious display of arousal, not sure if Keith realized he was displaying Mer courtship behavior or if it was an affliction humans regularly suffered from. 

Keith launched away and swam with his arms, legs kicking to generate more speed in the water. Shiro drifted behind him slowly, watching the way Keith’s body struggled to be hydrodynamic. The way his limbs cut through the water made Shiro think of an exquisite diving bird. Shiro submerged and dove under Keith, pushing up with powerful strokes to seize him out of the water, enjoying Keith’s laughing shout as he launched him. He landed with a gentle splash and clung to Shiro again, holding around the Mer’s neck. Keith didn’t struggle from Shiro, but he seemed to be trying to hide the erection that Shiro had noticed earlier. His skin was turning red, color changes were an obvious expression of desire for Mer, though usually only during certain seasons.

‘Are you alright?’ Shiro asked, watching Keith’s red color deepen. 

‘Y-Yeah,’ Keith adjusted against him. ‘Its just embarrassing…’ 

‘What is?’ Shiro tilted his head. ‘Are you ashamed of being without your coverings? I know humans do not like to be without them.’

‘A little,’ Keith replied, ‘But I know you don’t care about that, so I don’t care either.’

‘Is it because of this?’ Shiro brushed a finger delicately over Keith’s boldening erection. The human yelped at the touch and closed his legs over it tightly. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ Shiro said quickly. ‘Are you in pain? Did I hurt you?’

‘N-no, no, its just…’ Keith let out a deep breath, ‘Intense! Its- humans can’t control it very well and…’ He squirmed in the water. Shiro’s touch had gone straight up his spine and half of him wanted to hump against the Mer while the other half wanted to cry in shame in a corner. ‘It’s not really right for me to- and you’re still recovering…’ 

Shiro’s eyes seemed to darken and dilate. ‘Do you think this would hurt me?’ he asked, tilting his head.

He reached up and gripped Keith again, pulling down his foreskin and thumbing it gently. Keith let out a strangled sound, as if he were in pain, and tucked himself against Shiro’s collar. He didn’t say a word, but whimpered softly and bucked into his hand, a little bit of liquid squeezing out of it. 

‘No, but-’ He squeezed his legs around Shiro’s hand. ‘I haven’t really done this in the water before.’ He let out a gasp at Shiro’s grip holding him tighter. 

‘Is it uncomfortable to be in the water like this?’ Shiro let go of Keith and pet him. 

‘God! No, its really not bad at all, I’m just- auggghh…’ Keith clung tighter to the Mer, ‘People, humans don’t just touch each other like this...I mean I guess they do, but I’ve never..’ 

Shiro looked interested in Keith’s anthropological information, and returned to caressing Keith’s cock. He didn’t close his legs when the Mer’s fingers returned. ‘I see. In our society we do not do such things with strangers either, unless it is mating season.’ He gently pulled on Keith’s foreskin. ‘But we aren’t strangers, Keith. We have mutual trust, and I would like to make you feel good.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ Shiro said softly into Keith’s hair. ‘Tell me to stop if it hurts.’

The Mer held Keith’s cock in his hand, slowly milking it and squeezing it, the soft skin on the shaft rubbing up and down, tugging on and off the swollen head. They were moving slowly in the water, with Keith clinging to Shiro, his legs open and splayed, with Shiro’s arm wrapped around him. Keith was gasping against the water, making little ripples with his breath and falling into the sensation of Shiro’s powerful hand wrapped around him. His breaths were rising in volume into full blown moaning. 

The large Mer stared at the human, Keith was panting and red-faced, biting down on his lower lip and humping Shiro. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to Keith’s temple, spreading his human’s legs open to cup him. He was helping this little human. There was no fear or pain in Shiro’s mind, Keith was nothing like the Galra, and this moment had no associations with his nightmares. He felt deeply satisfied, watching Keith unravel, a small trail of saliva escaping his mouth as he made waves from his shaking in the pool. 

Shiro felt his human’s thighs tightening and his soft testicles harden, release imminent. Keith’s cock was engorged and Shiro could scent him in the water. His hand tightened and rubbed over the tip, creating a tight suction in his palm. There was a flood of warmth into it and Keith arched back and cried out, shaking throughout his entire body. 

‘Oh my god,’ Keith’s mouth was open and he was gasping quietly. ‘Oh..’ He closed his eyes and then flushed red, ‘Sh-Shiro, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to…’

‘Hm?’ Shiro was comfortably pinning his body to the tank wall. ‘I only wanted to please you. I hope you enjoyed it.’ He withdrew to give Keith space. 

‘No, no,’ Keith wrapped his arms around Shiro’s neck. ‘It was so good.’ He rested comfortably against his shoulder, his whole body sagging with relief. ‘Do you want me to do the same?’ His fingers moved to where he guessed Shiro’s genitalia were, a slit that was tightly closed and barely visible. Keith looked totally lost, but wholeheartedly determined. Shiro shivered and pulled back slightly. 

‘No, please don’t.’ Shiro spoke softly.

Keith removed his hand as though it were burned. He looked wounded, as though Shiro had taken a bite out of it. The Mer didn’t want to mislead him, so he admitted painfully, 

‘I am wounded there.’ 

Keith looked up, a kaleidoscope of emotions crossing his face. Shiro couldn’t meet his eyes for more than a moment, but he watched Keith’s mouth open and then press shut in a thin line, tight with anger at the cause of Shiro’s injuries. The moment seemed lost after that, and Keith looked ill. He gripped the side of the tank and scrambled up, water dripping off his pale legs. 

‘Keith,’ Shiro felt nervous now, and he followed Keith in the tank, ‘I am sorry-’ 

‘Don’t apologize!’ Keith snapped, turning sharply to Shiro. ‘Don’t you apologize for being-- so fucking nice and good after everything. I’M the one who should apologize.’ He stopped at the portable stairs and gripped his head in his hands. ‘I’m so stupid.’ 

Shiro reached out and awkwardly gripped Keith’s ankle. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t respond either. 

‘I just HATE people, I don’t even know who did these things to you and I want to kill them.’ Keith took his hands off of his face and then looked at Shiro, expression softening. He sighed and leaned over the edge, adjusting himself so that he was sitting on the rim of the tank, legs dipping back into the water. ‘It’s easier for me to know how to be angry and hate things. And I hate humans. I hate BEING human.’

‘And I acted just like the worst, just taking and expecting you to...’ 

Shiro’s hand moved to Keith’s knee and he swam forward to rest his forehead on it. ‘I don’t find you guilty of the sins of another, it would be just as cruel to generalize an entire race for one injury.’ 

Keith’s frown deepened and he stretched his legs out. The mood had darkened, just like the sky, and he felt a deep pocket of bleeding anger leaking inside his chest. He knew that somehow, he’d have something to say to the people who had made these marks in Shiro, even if it took him years. 

‘I shouldn’t have let you do that for me.’ Keith looked between his legs at his flagging cock like it was diseased. ‘I’m just as bad as-’

‘Stop!’ Shiro’s raised voice made Keith look up in shock. ‘I thought you looked beautiful. You are beautiful.’

His tail flicked in the water.

‘We should both stop apologizing.’

Keith’s mouth pressed thin and he sighed. ‘Okay. Okay, I can agree to that.’ Shiro watched him with dark eyes and then smiled, his sharp teeth glinting in the low light. 

‘I think we should talk about our mutual customs, if you can spare time from fishing. I would like to learn more about human interactions. We both have good intentions, there just seems to be something lost in the way we communicate to each other.’ 

Keith swallowed. ‘Yeah...I can do that too, I’m setting up a hammock to keep an eye on you at night. I can read to you and stuff.’ 

Shiro swam up to Keith and touched him again. ‘I hope you aren’t afraid to swim with me again?’

Keith colored but shook his head. ‘No, I’m not afraid, Shiro.’

Shiro’s smile lifted Keith, but even knowing that things would remain mostly unchanged between them didn’t make Keith less uneasy about knowing the full extent of Shiro’s injuries. They were going to have to have some long talks in the next coming days. And Keith was going to have to learn how to beat off in the shower before going on swims. 

 

\----------

**Author's Note:**

> This work is based on illustrations by lohkaydraws. You can see them here:  
> [Lance](http://lohkaydraws.tumblr.com/post/154539027748/playing-around-with-aus-little-mer-lance-i-want)  
> [Lance and Shiro](http://lohkaydraws.tumblr.com/post/155017017623/keiths-mer-boyfriends-he-likes-their-different)  
> [Shiro](http://lohkaydraws.tumblr.com/post/154997841553/shiro-in-our-mer-story-is-a-whitetip-shark-he)  
> I spent several summers working in a lab that had about 15 huge tanks for research/rescue purposes. Several times there were big sharks in them. They were usually hurt in some way or another and then they would be released once they were better. Good times!


End file.
